


Alone

by Amoreanonyname



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Ageing, Angst and Feels, HARD gen, Loneliness, M/M, Pining Sam Winchester, Soulmates Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester, Wincest - Freeform, empty nest, gencest, ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-18 09:55:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29116359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amoreanonyname/pseuds/Amoreanonyname
Summary: His back hurt. There was a heaviness to his steps nowadays. He was getting older, and the years of exercise and good diet hadn’t completely rectified the things his body had been through. He was older and frail. His body limited him. Go out and start a new life? Again? Where? How? He was tired.He was alone.
Relationships: Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester
Comments: 10
Kudos: 30





	Alone

**Author's Note:**

> As I sit at home alone in my 193745th week of pandemic and several weeks into a stay-at-home order, I contemplated the lonely nights Sam might have had as he got older. I can see Sam doing okay most of the time, but we all have those not-okay moments, and I imagine he had his too. Sorry that this one is so angsty - I'll be posting more fluffy content soon!

Sam sighed and looked out the window. 

His boy was away at college. As he should be. Dean’s job, his only job, had just been to grow up a good man. And he was doing that, right now. He called, he visited. But he was a young man living his life, and that was exactly what Sam wanted for him.

It had always been Sam’s job to take care of Dean, and never the other way around.

His boy’s mother was long gone.

Sam had spent years focused on his son, his purpose, his reasons for getting up and getting through the days, even the days he didn’t especially _want_ to get through. There was a gnawing ache that had never gone away.

But what was his life now? What purpose now? 

His boy still needed him, but not as much, not all the time. Sam was, not for the first time, a man without a plan, without a function, without someone beside him. The old crowd - Garth, Jody, Donna, Eileen - they were still around, they talked, they visited. But that’s all it was - occasional visits, occasional group texts or emails. 

His back hurt. There was a heaviness to his steps nowadays. He was getting older, and the years of exercise and good diet hadn’t completely rectified the things his body had been through. He was older and frail. His body limited him. Go out and start a new life? Again? Where? How? He was tired. 

He was alone.

For twenty years Sam had held it at bay. Built himself a new family, a new career, a new purpose. Kept busy, kept moving. Had the birthdays and Christmases and Thanksgivings and loved someone and married her and maybe it eventually ended, but that was okay. 

Sam, in his old age, living the kind of life some people feared. Isolated more often than not. 

Sam wasn’t afraid, but he was lonely, he was sad, and he was _angry_. Because it was never supposed to be this way. Twenty years and sometimes Sam still couldn’t believe that it was this way. Life had brought him so many gifts. But he was never supposed to grow old alone. There was supposed to be someone beside him, crow’s feet and bad knees and indigestion because he’d probably still insist on eating goddamn burgers no matter what Sam had to say about it. 

It was undignified, at his age, to worry about things like _fairness_. Since when was life fair? Since when had his life _ever_ been fair? But when he let himself think too much, the injustice of it threatened to take him over. 

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Sam wasn’t supposed to grow old alone. Dean was supposed to be here, enjoying this life beside him. Dean was always supposed to be beside him. If Sam had to live through this, ageing and dying and his body starting to break down, he shouldn’t have to also deal with _that_ pain, the other pain, that had never gone away. He shouldn’t have to live with the constant throb and ache of being apart from him.

Was he? Was he here? Dean promised to be with him, to stay with him. Was he with him now? Sometimes Sam was sure he felt him, but it could have been his mind playing tricks. Sometimes he’d sit in the car, and he was sure he felt Dean there too. Of course the Impala would feel like Dean.

What would Dean think of him being old? Proud? Happy? Strange? Sam was never supposed to be older. 

Dean was 42 when. When. Already starting what Sam was finishing. Already with lines around his eyes and where he smiled. And even now, Sam could never actually imagine Dean _old_. If his brother was beside him, he was still laughing and smiling and forever young. 

On days like this, one of the only things that helped was the car. Easing into the driver’s seat, the wrongness of Sam “driving” _baby_ mitigated by the sense that his brother was right there with him. The ache dulled, the raw edges, where it sometimes felt like he’d been cut in two, briefly calmed.

Grabbing the steering wheel, eyes closed. If anyone was looking, he’d look crazy. But of course no one was. He needed to talk to his brother.

“De,” he said, “you don’t know how hard this is sometimes. I’m doing it. I’m going to keep doing it. I won’t give up. But… but you gotta know how much this hurts sometimes.” 

Sam wasn’t sure if the feeling of a hand on his shoulder was his imagination or not, but he decided to enjoy it, just for a moment.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! As always, feedback is welcome!


End file.
